Brown's Balanced Life

I am a Christian, a husband, a father and a teacher living in Altoona, Iowa. This blog will will focus on setting goals. I will post my goals, give updates on my progress and share strategies to help meet your goals. I will use 5 strands of wellness in creating my goals (spiritual, financial, intellectual, relational, and physical) as my starting point. You can follow me on twitter @MrJoshuaBrown.

Wednesday, January 1, 2014

I am going to be slightly reformatting the purpose of my blog, but hope you stick with me as a reader. I tried changing the name of my blog but realized all my old links would not work if I did that, so I am keeping this live - but am asking you to follow me to my new site at http://mrjoshuabrown.blogspot.com/ for future posts.

For over a year I have been posting about living a balanced life and writing articles related to different strands of wellness. I will still be looking at five stands of wellness going forward but through the lens of setting and meeting goals.

I will be posting my goals for 2014 here later today. There will be a goal in each of the following areas:

Spiritual

Financial

Intellectual

Relational

Physical

Throughout the year I will...

Share my progress on my goals.

Go deeper into one of my goal areas by sharing my thoughts/learnings during my journey

Share strategies to help you set and meet your goals.

I will be encouraging you to share your goals with me too so I can try to help you meet your goals.

Tuesday, December 31, 2013

It is the end of 2013. How did you do on your 2013 goals - here is a quick snapshot of my goals!

Financial Wellness

By the end of 2013, we would like to pay off over 20% of the current outstanding debt on our house. To do this Anna and I will continue to work together with our finances find more opportunities to earn and save more money. We have also considered looking at selling our house, since we probably have a larger house then we really need.

FINAL UPDATE: We paid of over 40% of our outstanding debt and moved our debt free day up to October 1st, 2015!

Intellectual Wellness

My goal for 2013 is to read at least 100. As Charlie Jones said, "Five years from today, you will be the same person that you are today, except for the books you read and the people you meet." I want to read some good books, so that I can be a better person five years from now.

FINAL UPDATE: I have completed 103 books so far with a chance to finish one more before going to bed tonight.

Physical Wellness

By the end of 2013 I would like to be back at my pre-broken foot weight.

FINAL UPDATE: I was did not make this goal - but will continue to strive for this during 2013 as part of my overall fitness goals.

Spiritual Wellness

After finishing reading the Bible again in 2012, I plan on starting over in 2013. In addition to reading the Bible, I will be using Tony Dungy's The One Year Uncommon Life Daily Challenge for my personal quiet time in 2013.

FINAL UPDATE: I was able to do these things!

I have been working on creating 5 SMART goals for 2014 that will stretch me to be a better version of myself and continue to improve that are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely. I will be writing them up today to be posted tomorrow along with a new format for my blog.

Sunday, December 1, 2013

Can you believe it is already December? It is the last month of 2013 and the final days to accomplish a few of my goals and start working on creating my 2014 goals.

Financial Wellness

By the end of 2013, we would like to pay off over 20% of the current outstanding debt on our house. To do this Anna and I will continue to work together with our finances find more opportunities to earn and save more money. We have also considered looking at selling our house, since we probably have a larger house then we really need.

UPDATE: We have already completed this goal and have decided at least for the time being to stay in our current house. Anna is working on her Master's Degree right now which will help her salary increase over the next couple of years to help up eliminate debt quicker. I also changed my cell phone carrier which will lower our monthly expenses. We will be looking at other ways to make money and cut expenses in 2014!

Intellectual Wellness

My goal for 2013 is to read at least 100. As Charlie Jones said, "Five years from today, you will be the same person that you are today, except for the books you read and the people you meet." I want to read some good books, so that I can be a better person five years from now.

UPDATE: I am right on track with my intellectual goal having completed 91 of my books already. I will need to finish 9 more (3 which I will complete based on my daily readings - devotionals/Bible) this year.

Physical Wellness

By the end of 2013 I would like to be back at my pre-broken foot weight.

UPDATE: I was a little short of my end of November goal, but still believe I can make it to my pre-broken foot weight of 175 pounds by the end of the year (only 8.2 pounds to lose over December).

Spiritual Wellness

After finishing reading the Bible again in 2012, I plan on starting over in 2013. In addition to reading the Bible, I will be using Tony Dungy's The One Year Uncommon Life Daily Challenge for my personal quiet time in 2013.

UPDATE: I have done my personal time throughout the month of November and added "The Love Dare" to supplement this time. In addition Anna and I are using a devotional together by Tony and Lois Evans that has lead to some good conversations. William and I are working on establishing a habit of reading/discussing a devotion each day for boys which is going well.

I will post one more update at the end of the year on each of these four goals and share my goals for 2014 in about 31 days.

Friday, November 1, 2013

The year is quickly disappearing and so are our opportunities to reach the goals we set for ourselves at the beginning of the year. Here is my update on how I am doing with my goals.

Financial Wellness

By the end of 2013, we would like to pay off over 20% of the current outstanding debt on our house. To do this Anna and I will continue to work together with our finances find more opportunities to earn and save more money. We have also considered looking at selling our house, since we probably have a larger house then we really need.

UPDATE: During the month of September we had a few unexpected expenses, which slowed down our debt payoff by a month. We are back to being set to knock out our current mortgage no later than March 1, 2016 (Only 851 Days Away!)

Intellectual Wellness

My goal for 2013 is to read at least 100. As Charlie Jones said, "Five years from today, you will be the same person that you are today, except for the books you read and the people you meet." I want to read some good books, so that I can be a better person five years from now.

UPDATE: I have currently read 81 books in 2013 and as always working on a few mores. I have fallen even more behind and am now two books off pace. I will have the opportunity to do more reading during Thanksgiving break this month to hopefully catch up going into the final month of the year.

Physical Wellness

By the end of 2013 I would like to be back at my pre-broken foot weight.

UPDATE: I ended up staying on track toward my goal at the end of October. My short term goal for November is to lose at least 7.2 pounds to keep me on track!

Spiritual Wellness

After finishing reading the Bible again in 2012, I plan on starting over in 2013. In addition to reading the Bible, I will be using Tony Dungy's The One Year Uncommon Life Daily Challenge for my personal quiet time in 2013.

UPDATE: I have stayed on top of my personal quiet time this month and plan to add more journaling to the time during the month of October and share some of my thoughts through twitter or other social media outlets.

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Major life events impact trying to live a balanced life and balancing your budget. Today I have partnered up with other bloggers to support a giveaway that can help save you some money on one of those life events that can really set you back if you don't budget appropriately.

Monday, October 14, 2013

I will be taking a little break from my blog for the next couple months as I work on deciding its future. I will still update you on my goals since I have committed to that at the beginning of each month, but you may not seem much more action from me.

I am considering a few options with my blog:

Close it down

Focus on ones area to help others: Financial Wellness/Fatherhood/Setting Goals/Education

Use it as a tool in working toward my own goals in different areas of my life - Post long and short-term goals with action steps and use it to keep myself accountable toward those goals.

Talk about principles of books I am reading and applying into my life.

If I decide to keep the blog online I will likely be starting it up again in January with a new name and format. Thanks for reading my blog and supporting me. I would be open to any feedback as I look toward changes to make this blog more useful toward others and myself.

Wednesday, October 9, 2013

One of the goals of the state of Iowa is to become the healthiest state in the nation. In 2010 Iowa ranked 19th, in 2011 Iowa was 16th and then moved up to 9th in 2012. Check out this video to learn more about the initiative as Iowa strives to move into 1st place.

Today hundreds of thousands of Iowans will join together for the Healthiest State Initiative Walk to promote wellness and movement. I will be joining over 40 staff members and the hundreds of Goodrell students in walking tomorrow. You can join our walk and walk from wherever you are by clicking this link.

It is important for each of us no matter where we live to be active and make a difference in our own health and encourage the those around us to do the same.